


this feeling i have towards you

by practicality



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Coffee Shop Canon, F/F, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I think I'd need a chapter just for the bibliography by the end of this, Self-Indulgent, hell yeah
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-14 15:34:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8019466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/practicality/pseuds/practicality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From after the party until the time her hair grows out to reach her back, you will always be by her side.<br/>You are, after all, partners now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

In the middle of a cloud of warmth and coziness, you barely notice it creeping its way into your mind. Even though you try to dive back into the fluffy blissful nothingness of drowsy sleep, wakefulness comes in the little details you don’t have to work too hard to process.

A rosy glow from behind your eyelids,

the faint aroma of a gentle perfume and a complimentary waft of mellow coffee,

some kind of bitter graininess at the tip of your tongue, filling your mouth the more you try not to think of it,

the steady ticking of a second hand, going round and round,

and soft breaths that rise when yours fall, fall when yours rise, in and out, in, out… This fails to pique your interest until your thoughts and limbs catch up to the rest of you. You open your eyes – reluctantly, almost unwilling to confirm now, for fear of disappointment – to see that you are lying next to the dozing figure of one Jaehee Kang, whose fingers are still lightly interlaced with yours and whose ankles rest between your feet. You are each lying on your sides, facing the other. If her eyes weren’t closed and her breaths so soft and even…

It’s easy to imagine how this happened even if you can’t remember exactly right now. You remember the night before, some bits foggier than others. You must have dozed off first, but it feels like everything was only put on pause. If she woke up now, you could just lay here and listen to her talk for hours unto days, you think. You could do more than that, but somehow, it seemed right to listen first. She had told you she would have many things to say, and you would have been happy to report that she was not wrong about that at all.

When she talks to you, her eyes lights up so brilliantly. Is it in the dance her perfect eyebrows do, or the subtle changes in the shape of her mouth as she speaks, almost blurting out the words, or the way her eyes lock so firmly onto yours, and then dart away for flickering moments? Saying things behind the words? She was nothing a photograph could have shown you, this intensity that her entire person gives off when she gets going. When you met her eager gaze, that earnest, forward part of her hooked you instantly. How couldn’t you share her enthusiasm? She practically glowed, and for all the first impressions of her everyone in the RFA share, you know you will ultimately and always remember the burning passion and warmth of Jaehee Kang.

It’s hard to stop yourself, thinking about all this. A huge, silly grin splits across your face, so full of something unspoken stirring in your chest that it makes your cheeks hurt to just lie there and smile like a damned fool. You flex your fingers just a bit, shifting the hold just slightly deeper. It steals your breath away, this one long moment alone with her. But you can’t really say you mind the lightheadedness one bit.

You realize that you don’t actually know what time it is when she shifts suddenly, an intake of breath changing into a soft whining kind of groan, a protest against the loss of sleep. You’ve never heard her make a noise like that all before, so as she finally squints up at you, you must look positively ghoulish - beaming from ear to ear, glowing golden in glaring sunlight - the first thing she sees.

But all she says, though, and all you need to hear, is a soft “Good morning to you, too.” Her hand tightens its grip gently, and you add a little more pressure too. Suddenly, you feel your heart beating hard in your chest, the power of your pulse making your entire body feel the vigorous beat that keeps you alive and here, in the present, with Jaehee.

Your eyes fall to your interlocked fingers, glancing fleetingly over the details of her hands. They are wiry and strong, and you must say that they look very good this way. You consider saying this, but somehow, you feel almost embarrassed to lift your gaze again and say something so cheesy and out of the blue. But like she knows, like she read your face, in one fluid motion as she sits up fully and rolls the stiffness out of one shoulder, her other hand clasps yours fully, palm to palm.

“This way is nice, too,” she says softly in the silence after the sharp rasp of her movement across the sheets.

… Is the slight dampness between your hands from your sweaty palm? Are your palms starting to sweat over holding hands? _Oh my God_ , you think to yourself. You have already internally closed your eyes to take deep imaginary breaths in the struggle to not let that idea kill the atmosphere. _That’s not the point of any of this._ And what is?

She’s sitting right next to you, of course, and looking angelically backlit by the sunlight pouring into a room you are only now starting to take stock of. It is not a familiar room, but this doesn’t trouble you in the least. There will be time aplenty to get familiar with it later, probably.

You relax that over-exuberant beaming expression of yours. The ear-stopping heart-pounding dies down a little, and you regain enough fine motor control to gently rub your thumb against the back of her hand. Surprisingly, her fingers are a little chilly to the touch, but the heat in yours, you think, will soon fix that.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I have never really written a multi-chapter shipping fic before in my life, but I love Jaehee so much I could cry, so my intention is to write a multi-chapter fic about Jaehee and hopefully about the coffee shop! I truly and genuinely never interpreted her route as a really platonic route. I think there's a subtle, beautiful romance in there, and I hope I can do my idea of it some justice in fic form.
> 
> It's gonna be a little non-linear, because this chapter actually jumped past my original Ch. 1 after a particularly bad bout of procrastination. Ratings might change, but I'm not sure abt that! I'm also still playing the other routes... OTL
> 
> And thank you for loving Jaehee enough to open this fic. She deserves... so much.....


	2. Chapter 2

At this time, you are the ex-Chief Assistant and now unemployed Jaehee Kang, and you're starting to think you're in some trouble.

It's not life-threatening, and it's not something you need to resolve immediately. In fact, you're pretty sure it's okay to sleep in until noon now, but you can't help thinking that this is relevant to everything that’s been happening.

The most prominent of these matters is the ridiculous dance every organ in your body has suddenly decided to do. Your heart is practically shuddering while your gut seems to feel conflicted about what exact variety of knots it should be tied into. Your stomach has chosen to forego all this nonsense and just leave, and your brain seems to be on strike in solidarity with it. You’re no doctor, but this all seems very medically unsound to you.

The real trouble with all this is that you think you are enjoying it all very much.

It's only been a few days since you really started to feel like you were enjoying yourself this much, but you feel like even this is different from everything to do with the coffee shop report. This sweet young woman lying on your bed—her head resting on your pillows, her soft hand warm against yours, a smile brighter than the sunlight in your room—makes you feel like throwing caution out the window and doing a backflip off the bed. The voice of reason urgently whispers in the back of your mind that that seems like a  _terrible_  idea, but you feel like if she asked it of you, you'd do it without hesitation. And not in the same way as you once might have for Mr. Han, but just to... prove something else. You're not entirely sure what, or you are, and you're afraid to put it to words. There might be no going back.

Really, you've only known her for so long. Less than 24 hours, maybe more than twelve. It's a little hard to guess the time right now aside from "close to noon", so you've probably spent as much time together awake as asleep now.

You remember falling asleep last night, though. You remember laying there, awake but perfectly still, wondering if how long you'd talked before she had fallen asleep and how long it had taken you to actually notice. You thought in retrospect, with a pang of guilt, of how much more you had talked than her, and worried you'd bored her asleep. Why hadn't you noticed this disparity when she was awake? Shouldn't you have asked her more questions about herself, let her speak more?  _How selfish of me_ , you had thought regretfully.

Your fears were catching up to you in the echoing, empty silence, and you deserved it. Where was your self-control, and how could you be so thoughtless? Was this the first impression you were going to leave? What if this was the last and only time she'd humor you like this? Where did all your careful plans about controlling the flow and development at a reasonable pace go? How could you really think just doing what you wanted could have led to anything good—

And then, a ray of light cutting through the dark clouds above you. In her sleep, she gave a little huff, a tiny sigh, just a small tickling breath that brushed your knuckles and sent a small thrill up your arm.

You are not alone. It was all real, and an electrifying feeling of sheer daring is challenging you to believe that maybe that all means something, and something good. It might be just a feeling but maybe she  _did_  have fun, she  _did_  have opportunities, but she is here with you because she actually wanted to be. For once you feel like you had an immense amount of  _fun_ without letting anyone hurt, especially yourself. Maybe this is the headiness that inspired you to take the mic and interrupt every conversation at the party to call out for her in front of everyone, including Mr. Han. You still can’t think that that was the wrong decision, no matter what.

So maybe it would be okay to assume that not everything was disastrous. So maybe you didn't execute the literal script you had prepared for yourself just in case before the party. Well, maybe you are a bit nervous about the unscripted parts, but somehow, you feel like things are going to be all right. It’s not wrong to leave things to uncertainty. Not every variable needs to be controlled, because not all of them can be now, and that is how it should be.

Your criticisms, your insights, all the little things you'd learned to repress so well had come forth from some deep wellspring of something a little like resentment. And it was all okay with her. You'd thought the brief and harsh training to become Chief Assistant had thoroughly drilled out what little ability to speak your own mind that living alone had granted you, finishing a job that had started long ago in a house that was never home. But not only did this girl agree with the things you had to say, she had encouraged  _you_. Not for the benefit of C &R, and certainly not just for herself... Cheering you up and on, and telling you the things you don’t dare even think to yourself… Parts of you you thought were ugly feel less grotesque in her light.

It's still a work in progress, but you can practically feel yourself changing every day, even without the commentary from the rest of RFA. Even if she disagreed, you didn’t think you would be worried.

How long had it been since you felt this way? You're barely even sure that there ever has been a time when this was so true. It's something entirely new and you're poised on the brink of something so exciting you can barely understand it. But something still isn’t complete. You feel like the situation should be perfect now. She said yes, so even if the project is absolutely in its infancy, you know already that you've visualized the perfect plan and all the steps necessary. You are a master of preparation and a quick thinker in turns of good and bad luck alike, and you know this. You've allowed yourself that little vanity. But there’s an incredibly thornish feeling nagging at you, saying you're not really ready at all. Something key must be missing, and it might not be in the list of documents and appointments you keep in your planner, something you didn't account for at the beginning. Something you can't account for, because it can't be kept in a ledger or a calendar.

It's all too risky, you know. What  _are_  you thinking? What are you _feeling_? You're going to own a small business soon, and you must be careful not to get too wrapped up in long term speculation and fancy. You have always executed your tasks with a pragmatism you were proud of, the ability to cut the inefficient costs to the closest degree while fulfilling all the requirements. Knowing it, and knowing that everyone else knew it, was satisfying. But you're starting to really see that it didn't mean you were  _happy_ , because this, you know now, must be what happy is.

Until yesterday, you'd only ever exchanged messages with her over an app, honestly, and you certainly remember saying some things that may not have been so warm at the start. You wish you could have told the you from eleven days ago to use that time better, to reach out sooner. Maybe there’d be a better foundation for you to lay your plans on. Your thoughts are too clouded in ways you don't really have a plan to deal with yet. They have been clouded for a while, and you honestly needed all the sleep to make up for the hours lost before the party to fruitless hours struggling.

It's not that you lied to her about how you feel. You've really never felt clearer headed, like you were actually moving somewhere because you wanted to. Happiness is within reach, and even though just two nights ago you thought you’d already obtained it, it just may turn out that things are not so easy. But they won’t be hard either, if this is how things might be going forward. Sometimes hope hurts, but you’d forgotten how huge the payoff could be in the right times, with the right people. Every piece of you hopes the rest of you is right.

She’s done this from the start, pushed you to say the things you would have dismissed without a thought. You wonder if she can hear you trying to say something between the lines, or if you were too subtle.  _Women have to be much more careful in approaching other women…_  The assumptions in the chatrooms about how things are feel like ominous warnings to you. Can you try to break those normal boundaries, do you have that right? You know she would tell you to do what makes you happy or what you want to do.

What  _do_  you want, though? How do you separate it from what others say and your fear of everything that could go wrong? What you want is not so simple as just a single goal right now. Even thinking directly of it, with her right here next to you, you feel like just thinking it too loud will make it audible to all. You hope desperately that she can’t read minds, and just in case she can, you think somewhat sheepishly that you were really thinking about trying  _not_  to think about it at all.

You realize you’ve actually been quiet this whole time, and that you had lain down again at some point. She hasn’t said a thing, as though she was waiting or thinking too. The lull is shared, the silence is mutual and warm, words without sound. How different this room is with just her presence. You hope it is here to stay for a while, and your throat tightens to think that you might lose it all with careless words.  _It’s better to think first,_  you assure yourself.  _It’s better to know yourself first, before you lose someone else in careless mistakes and dangerous words._

But in the light of day, danger feels like the furthest thing in the world from the two of you on a lazy afternoon, feet tangled together absentmindedly beneath the covers and soft laughter floating out the window. It can't last forever, but you can take your time for once and drag your feet with pleasant company.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hm. So this also... wasn't the planned chapter, but I felt like I couldn't write the rest without mapping out how I interpret Jaehee. I just think she must habitually overthink everything, even if her actions outwardly seem efficient and logically decided. I think all the chapters from here on will be back to the Reader's perspective, but please know... those gears in her head will always churning away.
> 
> I thought a lot of things about the ending, and this was initially going to sort of be a POV piece about the party, but it turned into what it is now. I feel like Jaehee's still learning to act in ways truer to her heart and herself. I love where her route ended because I think MC can, should, and will be there to help her continue to change. And I love that and I want to try to write that. I love that she, who would have taken a background space as the Chief Assistant, calls out Jumin in front of the whole damn party and chases him away from you to speak to you herself. I love her.
> 
> Actual events will hopefully happen in the next chapter because I don't think I can bring myself to stall another chapter, lolol. Thank you again for reading, and seriously, thank you for the sweet comments. They mean the world to me. ♥


	3. Chapter 3

It is a slight misfortune that both of you tried to speak at the same time, just when you finally think of something to say.

“Did I—“ “Jaeh—“

A beat of silence. Neither of you takes the initiative again.

“You… first,” you say contritely, trying not to laugh. Jaehee vehemently shakes her head, rubbing her pillow with a shrill _krr, krr_ sound that makes your ears ring. She clasps your hand between hers with a look of overexaggerated determination and says in a grave tone appropriate to her use of an archaic form, “No, my lady, please. Give breath to the thoughts that trouble your honorable self.”

You think you recognize this line from one of Zen’s shorter demo videos online that you looked up, but you’ve forgotten the line that comes in reply. So you instead scrunch up your face as though deeply troubled and give a huge pout, but the look on her face that she shows you at the end makes you forget what weak comeback you were going to go with, and everything becomes a mess of laughter and giggling instead before she asks you about your plans for the rest of today.

You think about your phone. You’re not sure where it is, but you have a good feeling it doesn’t really matter. You tell her you are free all day.

She doesn’t follow up on the question with anything in particular, and you are slightly disappointed. But she relaxes visibly, and you think it is not too silly to think that that’s because of your response. Instead, she brings up an old director, who was popular in the industry before he took charge of one of Zen’s musicals, and mentions, a little off-handedly, that he might have a film out in theaters now, and that she has heard some interesting reviews about them.

“I heard the lead actor was told to study Zen’s performance from _Cayenne You See Me Now_ ,” she tells you thoughtfully. “Of course, it would be rude to the actors to tell them to replace their own style for someone else’s entirely, but I certainly understand why the director would set Zen as the standard. And yet…”

You have to admit (to yourself) that you had never seen any of Zen’s movies before joining the RFA. His is a familiar face, but only distantly like someone you passed once in the subway, or someone from an ad there. You have gotten along okay so far based on your experiences with fan-based social media sites that you used to regularly use and short-lived adventures on fansites before the scare with the hacker. After that, you had been careful with how much you frivolously browsed sites while in Rika’s apartment to try to make it easier on Seven to keep things secure.

All of that feels like it happened ages ago. You trace her face with your eyes, catching the dynamics with an aching sense of familiarity, though you’d never seen her talk before. You think about how this is exactly what you imagined how she would look when she talks about Zen’s musicals, the way her smile pushes up the corners of her eyes a little, and how soft her hair looks from here. You think about the smell of her on the sheets beneath you, and you wish you could bury your nose in them and just take a few deep grounding breaths.

When the two of you can be bothered to pause the chattering in order to service your grumbling stomachs – “I’ve _never_ missed breakfast,” Jaehee informs you in a tiny, mortified voice – you realize exactly how hungry you actually are.

“Do you have something to eat? Breakfast things?” You flip over onto your stomach in the center of the bed instead of rolling off it and prop your chin up on your hands. Jaehee takes a good moment to think, and a good moment turns into a slightly uncomfortable period of time before she answers you.

“Let me… check,” she says hesitantly. “If you’d like, the bathroom is just right there,” she points at the sliding door on the far side of the room from the bed. “If you don’t mind, please… give me a moment.”

“How long is a moment?” you ask as she stands from her side of the bed, but she just gives you something of a distracted smile and ducks out of the room quickly.

You are left alone on the bed, feeling chilly next to the space that she leaves. You sit up and cross your legs, looking around the room now that she’s gone. You remember more from the day before when you see your formal wear draped neatly over the back of a small elegant armchair. You remember asking in the most neutral voice you could hold at the time if she had any comfortable clothes she could lend you, and remember changing into a shirt from the back of her closet that made you heady with the smell of her. You remember moving to her bed to sit and talk, the thrill of being invited in here, but also the sleepiness that slowly dragged you down to a supine position.

You challenge the comfort of this reminiscence by standing and going over to the door she indicated earlier. Through it, you find a neat bathroom and sink, with a cute but frayed looking duck mat and otherwise few distinguishing features. You catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, framed on all sides by the unfamiliar, and strike a little victory pose just to pump yourself up. You are wearing an oversized T-shirt with a print of what seems to be the front of a playbook, presumably a production of Zen’s from the past. You can’t quite tell when, since the shirt itself seems to be in mint condition, but you get the sense that this is an old play. You consider asking her how you look like this, and if she’d like the combination any more than its parts separately.

When you finally wander out into the halls after splashing your face in the bathroom, you find Jaehee in the kitchen, her back turned to you.

“I don’t have a lot,” she informs you in a sheepish tone, her head still poked halfway into the fridge. She doesn’t see your line of sight traveling appreciatively down that elegant curve of her back as she leans into it. “I could still cook something simple, if you’d like.”

“I _would_ like that,” you say as your pulse picks up again. You really would. “But can I help?”

She hesitates for a moment, but you insist gently. “Please? Just tell me what to do.”

“Alright,” she finally murmurs, straightening up and tilting her head back to show you a rueful sort of half-smile. “But I don’t usually cook, so I’m afraid you may have to tell me what to do if you have any ideas.”

You promise her you are no professional yourself, but you skip around the counter in the center of the kitchen and dining space to stand behind her at the fridge. She bends down slightly again to point out what she has in the fridge, and you just feel yourself naturally gravitating to that little dip between her shoulder blades and lean down to just rest on her back, your torsos parallel. You bring your hands to her shoulders, like you’re holding on and make a small noise of interest about the contents of her fridge. She tenses a little, and you can feel it under you in her back, but she doesn’t shrug you off and simply continues with the explanation of the contents of what you now see is a half-empty fridge. You listen with half a mind on her explanation and half a mind trying to keep track of her every response to you right now. You consider a few ideas, then scan the shelves on the door of the fridge and reach to check the labels of a few bright boxes inside.

“ _Doenjang-jjigae_ , maybe?” you suggest, thumbing the lid of a tub of the fermented bean paste. “Is this still good?”

“Of course, it’s _doenjang_ ,” Jaehee says, standing now, slowly and in a fluid controlled arc – not pushing you off, but still rising as you take a small step back. She stands still facing the fridge, her hand resting delicately on the top of the fridge door like she is waiting for something. You don’t know what exactly to do at that moment, so you hook the edge of the _doenjang_ tub from underneath with your finger and pull it out.

“There are pots by the sink,” she tells you, still facing away from you. You take a moment to stare at the back of her neck, trying to shake the feeling that this strange push is deliberate, and go back halfway around the counter the way you came. You find a beautiful black earthenware pot among a couple of still sparkling steel pots and heave it up and out. When you bring it to the counter, you see that Jaehee has already pulled out cutting boards and a pair of mismatched kitchen knives and set them down. She is checking her phone at the far end of the long counter from you, holding it close to her face and reading intently.

“Jaehee?” you call, but for a moment, she doesn’t say anything. “Jaehee?”

“Hm?” She doesn’t look up for a moment. “Oh, I’m looking up some recipes for it,” she responded, giving you a small smile now. “I haven’t really made it that often before.”

The smile is encouraging. “Here, let me check, too. I haven’t made it lately, and it might take a little while, but it should be delicious.”

You notice now, your phone lying facedown on the counter nearby. When you flip it over, the screen glows gently and a small blue light flashes with moderate urgency as a monstrous list of notifications spill onto your lock screen.

“Oh no,” you groan under your breath. This must have been from everyone after the party. Considering that both you and Jaehee had disappeared the moment the festivities officially ended, there had probably been a lot of important correspondence that you had missed. The caterers and other staff had all already been paid before the party even began (just in case _something_ happened), but there seemed to still have been problems with other things after cleanup. You scroll quickly past these emails, noting that you seem to have been CC’ed instead of directly addressed. Those emails have all been sent to Jaehee’s work address, and you feel a pang of guilt as you realize how much work Jaehee must have also taken on in order to prepare the other aspects of the party for you. Others are emails of thanks and following up on some offers made during the party from some of the guests, and at the very bottom of the ridiculous list of messages and emails to your phone, you find four welcome notifications and icons.

You want to check and reply to them now, but instead, you make a note in the back of your mind for now and pull up Chrome. You check the top result for _doenjang-jjigae_ , skimming it lightly and putting down your phone again before Jaehee has even looked up again.

The fridge has most of what you need, though the last onion in her crisper is a bit on the small side. There is a back of dried anchovies in the freezer as well, tucked in next to a small pile of different flavors of Samanco. You tuck it under your arm and close the freezer door with a nudge of your shoulder, and then spin around to face the counter and almost drop the onion on the floor in surprise with how close behind you Jaehee is standing. She also gives a start in surprise, but has the consciousness to reach out and grab the onion in one hand and press it against your fingers with the other.

“Careful!” she laughed, guiding your hand to the cutting boards behind the two of you. “I’m sorry, I saw you in the fridge and wanted to help… But I see you didn’t need it.”

“It was just taking them out,” you said, sliding a coy tone into your words. “But I could certainly need lots of help with the rest of this.”

“Ah, and here I thought I could just take a break,” Jaehee sighed, taking the potato from where you set it down. She looked back up at you after picking up the knife, and gave a small gasp at your expression. “Oh, I meant it as a joke! I didn’t really mean that this would be any work!”

You let out the breath you’d held when you realized what she could have meant, but now that she’s reflecting your anxious look, you can only laugh, pressing your knuckle to the space beneath your nose as you giggle. She returns your smile as well and begins to work on the potato. She peels it deftly with her hands, and you take a moment to watch. Even if she says she doesn’t cook often, the dexterity in her hands is graceful, and you feel a little embarrassed at your own technique when you begin to dice the onion. You throw little glances at her every so often and see that she’s still smiling when she finishes peeling the potato, and when she throws out the peels in the trash, and even when she is chopping the potato into small cubes.

She catches you on a glance, and you realize when she looks away quickly first, that perhaps she has been glancing at you too. But you’re not sure that it’s not just because the onion in front of you looks a little like it got run over by an eighteen-wheeler with spikes on its wheels or not, so you just chalk it up to being a natural disaster with a knife.

With the two of you working, you have the pot filled with vegetables, a handful of anchovies, and water simmering away on her stove top soon enough. When it starts to boil, she adds a generous heaping spoonful of _doenjang_ to the pot while you hold the tub secure enough for her to scoop deep into it. As it dissolves into the bubbling liquid, a fragrant waft of steam and salt hits both of you, and you breathe in deeply simultaneously.

The sense of victory comes back up for you again, and you can’t quite stop yourself from humming the chorus most ridiculously catchy pop ballad from Promiscuous Jalapeño Topping as the two of you clear the counter in broad, dancing movements. Jaehee joins in, singing the other half of the duet that follows with a surprisingly strong and clear voice, dunking the knives into the sink with an alarming disregard for safety while caught in the moment. In a few broad steps that are nearly leaps, you find yourself standing on her sofa by the dining space, one foot planting on one armrest as you reach with one longing hand into the sky, offering the Hot Pepper Prince’s sizzling prayers to the Spiciest Ones in the stars above.

And Jaehee is there when you spin around, half-kneeling on the other side of the couch, wobbling because of how soft the cushions are, but fully ready to outsing you, as she does, on the final three lines of the song until the two of you are left in the ringing silence in the room. And then everything collapses, including the two of you, as you clasp each other’s forearms and sink onto the couch laughing hysterically at each other and yourselves, laughing until your stomach aches enough for you to forget that you’re hungry, as Jaehee’s hands grip your arms with firm strength and she laughs so hard you can see tears in her eyes through your own.

God, do you love her.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Doenjang-jjigae](http://www.maangchi.com/recipe/doenjang-jjigae), or fermented soybean paste stew, is delicious! If you're familiar with doubanjiang (豆瓣酱), this is a similar paste, I think?
> 
> I have chapters done for later, but since I’ve never written a story that actually progresses through time, I have no idea how to move it forward to that point…! There will be fluffy kisses and other… things… but I ended up cooking dinner for six hours yesterday and ultimately needed to write a cooking chapter... 
> 
> Gosh, I've read only a few fanfics, and never written more chapters than this, but I'm seriously in awe of all fic writers and people who read those beautiful fics. Kudos back to you guys...! Thank you everyone for your support!
> 
> (I had some more thoughts in general about writing this fic and Jaehee, so I put them in a private post on [tumblr](http://arystarkrory.co.vu/private/150545589358/tumblr_odntuxoOFf1qeh93g). I posted them publicly by accident at first and I thought I was going to die of embarrassment...


End file.
